region and many of you may be learning in realtime, since hamas is unprecedented attack. and you're trying to understand the complexities and nuances, all of course while trying to process the horror of war. >> you are not alone and trying to poland's win to lean in and when to look away. the stories of brutality and cruelty and manifestation are truly shocking. that death toll is still rising. at least 1200 people have been killed in israel since sunday, according to israel's public broadcaster. not hundred people dead in gaza, according to the palestinian ministry of health. mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends slaughtered in the middle of their daily lives. israel is hammering gaza with airstrikes hitting hundreds of targets and detergent neighborhoods to rubble. this new and unthinkable atrocities being uncovered in its territory after the devastating attack by hamas militants. >> that bloody hands of the terrorist organization hamas, a group whose status purpose is to kill jews. this is an act of sheer evil. more than 1000 civilians, slaughtered. just slaughtered. in israel. at least 14 american citizens killed. >> but the numbers can't even begin to tell the full story. the toll that it has taken and will take is perhaps incalculable. this is about human lives, human lives that have been lost. human lives that have been traumatized. human lives that are still missing. a man who was abducted from the music festival, attacked by hamas gunmen. >> whoever saw the video, it's horrifying. to see your nephew in the situation, basically hit, ruthless, anybody that is human -- >> woman, murdered inside of her own home by hamas, posting a video of her dying on her own facebook page. >> my grandma was more concerns for my safety than her own. she was in the shelter, but she was making sure we are all safe, we were good. and then ten minutes ago, we saw the video. >> a man who says he played dead inside a bunker, is people around him were killed. >> i just covered myself with a lot of did people. so i stayed there, inside, four hours. just waiting to die. i just wanted to die in pace, because i suffered so much. so much. the gas. in the middle of the gas, i remembered, i didn't know who i was, but now i know. i just started to think -- >> moth are looking for her daughter, holding out hope she may still be alive, after fearing she was killed and paraded through the streets. >> we heard information that she is alive and that she has a bad head injury and is in the hospital. that's all we know. and that gave us hope. >> a palestinian american moderate stuck in gaza with her three children with no way out. >> it's terrible. my kids are very scared and they're afraid of what's going on. we have to explain all the time, i have calmed them down and i'm trying to make them feel comfortable, safe. >> so, tonight i'm going to talk about the human beings in these headlines. i cannot control, nor am i trying to tell you how to feel about any of them. i can only tell you what has happened. what is happening. and what might still happen. from the real experts. today i'll toe to a survivor of the carnage music festival where 250 people were killed. and here with me in studio tonight, to help with everything we are seeing in perspective, to people who know this region inside and out. mark -- e ceo of definition for defense of democracies. he has advised four different presidential administrations, an expert on iran, and has even been sanctioned by them for his work. and -- cnn national security analyst who is the former deputy director of national intelligence. together with them and you and i, we are going to learn together. but first, a father whose son is missing after a month sucker at his kibbutz. jonathan -- says he does not know where his 35 year old son is after a hamas attack near the border. and he joins me now. jonathan, i'm so sorry about what's happening to your son and everyone at the kibbutz. have you've been in touch with u.s. officials about your son? are they getting you any information? >> good morning. the picture on the screen is my beautiful son, 35 years all, father of two, wonderful beautiful little girls. expecting a third girl in a couple of months. the u.s. consulate in jerusalem and the u.s. state department, as well, contacted me last night, israel time. and just to touch base, to make sure they had the correct information about my son as an american citizen. but that were not able to offer any information. and for all of those, well over 140 people from our region, who are either verified as hostages in the gaza strip or missing like my son, there is no information of any kind whatsoever since that were abided so the night morning. have they given a kind of timeline of when they might expect to provide information? or are they still trying to uncover the details? >> i can't speak for the american government, or for the israeli government, to be honest. i'm an israeli american but i've lived my entire adult life in we kissufim, on the border. it is a place of beauty, a place of agricultural production, culture. i have no way of estimating how long it could take for any kind of negotiations, if that will ever exist, with hamas as a terrorist organization to free any of these people. keep in mind, we're not talking just about young men like my son. this is from infants to very elderly people who couldn't actually move on their own. they were in wheelchairs, dragged across fields in order to be taken back to gaza. so we are talking about an absolute disaster and in our case, perhaps a bit differently from people who were murdered at that music festival, this is our home. our home was rendered actually uninhabitable. the entire community in almost all of these border communities are no longer inhabitable, because it was not murder, it was not just barbaric treatment of people of all kinds, it was the utter destruction of communities. we at this point have nowhere to go back to. >> jonathan, i understand that of the 400 people in your kibbutz, fewer than half our survivors tonight. what is to come now of those who remain and are accounted for? where will you go? >> for the next week or so, the israeli government has provided a temporary housing in a hotel in a city in the southern tip of israel, very far from the fighting. in the meantime, it is quite safe. the condition of my neighbors, my friends, my family, migrant children who survived is unspeakable at this point. all of them are and one or other estate of trauma. they woke, or were awoken, around six a.m. on saturday morning by something that can only be described as -- that terrible images most of us would have thought couldn't possibly reappear in the 21st century, it took place in my home over the course of about six hours between six a.m. and the time that the idf actually came to repulse these invaders, these barbarians from our homes. and by that time, several dozen all of our kibbutz members, from infants, toddlers, elderly people, were murdered in their homes. all of our homes were set ablaze by these terrorists. visibly taken away to gaza as hostages, and we know nothing of their faith. or like my son, we simply do not know where they are. we know that we're on the kibbutz at that point. we lost communication at around 9:30 in the morning, september -- saturday, as he left almost all the other young people doing everything they could to defend their families and everyone else's families from our very small community. >> jonathan dekel-chen, thank you so much for joining. and we are thinking of your family and your community and your son and his sibling, amongst so many others. thank you. >> thank you. >> amid all those horrifying stories, israel now appears to be preparing for a possible ground invasion into gaza. i want to go to cnn's matthew chance who is live for us right now in tel aviv. matthew, president biden pledging his support to israel, as more troops moving to the border with gaza. what do you expect israel's next move to the? >> laura, president biden pledging his support and also placing the world's biggest aircraft carrier off the coast of israel as well to provide a deterrence and case any surrounding -- decide they want to try and intervene if and when israel embarks on a land invasion of the gaza strip. of course, the israelis have not given a timeframe for that. the defense minister today said that it would happen later. but in the meantime, remember that israel has cold more than 300,000 of its reservists. just another 60,000 in the past 24 hours. it has deployed something in the region of 35 battalions and various places around the country, but directionally towards the gaza strip. so every sign, every -- on-the-ground is preparations for a land invasion of gaza, of some kind, are being -- if that does happen, and there's a lot of political pressure on the israeli government to do something like that. that will have a lot of support amongst the israelis. we have spoken to even that most left leaning of israelis in this country. those opposed to incursions by the israeli forces into gaza. even people like that are telling us that they now support military operations inside of gaza. so the effect of these attacks by hamas, and how opponent they are, has had the impact of uniting israel in this moment of horror and rage and crisis. remember, every set the day for the past several months there have been protests against the israeli government. that has now ended. the political -- has closed for the moment and as the country braces itself for what will be the next stage in this war that it has said it is now engaged in. laura? >> matthew chance, thank you so much, from tel aviv. i want to bring an expert on the region there. with me in studio, mark and -- with me. we are hearing these stories. it gives you such pause. heartbreak. it sinks, thinking about stories that are told and those yet to uncover. you heard from president biden today, who has expressed support obviously for israel as well and confirming there are some americans who are not only missing but our hostages. both of you have such expertise in the region. you lived there recently, the past 14 months. and other things. what did it look like, the response, and how complicated now that americans are involved? how does that complicate and escalate the situation? >> it's complicated for president biden. obviously, we've had american citizens killed, taken hostage, but i think president biden is very clear. his support for israel, as he's, it is unwavering. i spoke to his -- israeli friends who've witnessed the horrors of the past, and they say the first time they actually cried was during president biden's speech. because he gave such expression and i think president biden obviously has been through a lot of family pain himself, haven't lost a wife and children. so i think for israelis they are incredibly grateful to the president. and i think the president himself, even though this is an incredibly complicated political issue for president biden, understands israel has to do what it needs to do in order to destroy hamas, that terrorists that have committed this genocide, and after the weapons that are inside gaza. >> he's often noted as the compassion-in-chief and comforter in chief. he did not talked about restraint. some people -- which cannot be given short shrift, but what he talked about restraint? how would he have addressed this? what are the options he has? >> he doesn't actually have any option. first, i don't think that he really wants to at this stage. i think that there is a sense of a total paradigm shift. this isn't just a small incursion. i don't want to diminish anyone's life, but maybe one or two people getting killed or rockets going off is a proportion that is unfathomable for anyone involved, looking at this. and so, that is why the israeli public at the president over decades and decades, very much committed to defending israel. so it's part of his dna and saying this must stop. it can't actually happen again. and so, now, something has to be done to prevent hamas from doing this again. and so, that's where we are now. but i do think we're going to reach a parade in the coming weeks now, if this ground incursion goes forward at any scale. maybe it will be smaller. maybe it will be in and out. we don't know exactly what this will look like, but if it is at scale, and there isn't some way of evacuating palestinian children and innocents, we are going to see a lot of carnage. and i think then, we are still seeing in parts of our own society, people being a little bit wishy-washy about understanding what hamas is all about, and not understanding really that they are a terrorist group. >> that's a very important point. if i can add one quick, i've been hearing stories that haven't been reported yet about the scale of the massacre. babies, hands tied, decapitated. bodies burnt. pregnant women murdered. pregnant child from their bellies with the umbilical cord still attached. these are stories that are going to increasingly come out. and the president for the israeli -- >> the information we continue to get there, assessing the veracity of the shock and horror, all we're seeing. stick around, we'll unpack and great detail what is happening together. there is also a shocking report from reuters that said hamas fold israel for months as planned this brutal attack. all told tv for director of national intelligence, james clapper. what does israel need to do about this? and also coming up, alto to a man who escaped music festival or 250 people or killed. what he is saying about his missing friends. we >> tonight, president taking a harder stance against hamas. colin the terrorist organization against israel sheer evil. here's what he had to say. >> that personality of hamas is block their worst springs to mind, the worst rampages of i.s.i.s.. this is terrorism. but sadly, for the jewish people, it is not new. >> my next guest knows very well how these groups operate. he's cnn's national security analyst and the former director of national intelligence. james clapper is here with us. also back with me, mark dubowitz and beth sanner. director clapper, thank you for being here tonight. you heard the president of the united states, compare that brutality of hamas to i.s.i.s.. and we've seen the horrifying videos, the indiscriminate killings. how did hamas get to this level? >> i think it starts with that lengthy blockade that egypt and israel imposed on the gaza strip, restricting goods and services that had before, previously, gone into gaza. and so about 40% of the population are youth and i think many of these youth got radicalized. the frustration, the sheer hatred of israel and israelis is what led to this. i think there were some other factors, and probably the timing of the attack, it's been 50 years since the yom_kippur war and i think that strategically, i think hamas was concerned about, and for that matter, they were sponsor, iran, concerned about the -- between the saudi and israel, brokered by the united states -- to normalize relations between saudi and israel. and i think hamas found that extremely threatening. it felt, perhaps, lift out of the discussion. it's almost unfathomable for us in the west to comprehend the level of hatred and the animal-like behavior that has been implicated among hamas. rivaling, if not exceeding, the violence of i.s.i.s.. it is really hard to get your head around. >> it really is, it's an extraordinary comparison for so many reasons. and we are also reading and learning more. reuters is reporting that hamas misled israel for months, as it was planning the attack. and even my have constructed a mock israeli settlement in gaza, where militants can practice a militant landing and were trained how to storm it. how could that have been missed, then, if true, by israel and also our own intelligence? >> laura, i think some years ago i toured along as a guest of the israeli army along the gaza fence line. and got to personally observe the intense scrutiny that will israel -- on a 24/7 basis into we cameras up gaza. and down the line, the defense line, so no intelligence collections typing in to their telephones and all that. and i think hamas went to school on the israelis and just sustained what had become the normal intelligence picture they portray to the israelis. and i'm quite sure, and i think beth has spoken to this and i agree with her. they did things in person. broke up into very small cells, probably each one of which didn't know what the other cells were doing. they didn't do this overnight or in a week. this took months of planning. as a result of taking advantage of this normalcy, the normal pathogens they had exhibited, and then sub rosa, clint distantly, or planning and training for some mission. i can't speak weather to whether there was a training facility. there could have been, i suppose. the israelis, it would appear, if there was, what missed it. they are preoccupied with other things, notably the west bank has more settlements, both with illicit and illicit were created in the west bank. that we -- want the israelis apparently did, we're trying to automate as many of these surveillance stations as possible. even automated machine guns which were unmanned. but again, hamas went to school on that and they took the communications really tellers out some of the cameras were no longer operative. that enabled them to use bulldozers, blunt but effective, to penetrate along the gaza line at about 40 paces. the fighters they saints, and again this gets to their offensive system, we are embarking on a suicide mission. i have to believe, they understood they probably wouldn't survive penetrating into israeli territory. this is me guessing, speculating, theorizing, as are others. at some point, i'm quite sure the israelis are going to conduct a very thorough postmortem of what occurred here. >> but for now, director clapper, it is about survival and trying to get back the more than 100 hostages being held as well. thank you for lending us your expertise. we'll come back to our panel as well and dive at little deeper into what can be described as they, i guess, the fracturing and also trying to focus on what has happened in the region and how it could have been, perhaps, diversified in such a way intelligence might not have been able to induce it appropriately. but it's one of the most horrific moments of the conflict. the attack on the israeli music festival. hundreds of people killed, many at point blank range. next i'll speak with one of the survivors who knows people who are still missing. nice footwork. man, you're lucky, watching live sports never used to be this easy. now you can stream all your games like it's nothing. yes! [ cheers ] yeah! woho! running up and down that field looks tough. it's a pitch. get way more into what you're into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. here's why you should switch from chrome to duckduckgo. duckduckgo is a browser you download to your mobile and desktop devices. unlike chrome, the duckduckgo browser has privacy built-in. it comes with a private alternative to google search, which doesn■t spy on your searches, and it blocks cookies and creepy ads. and there's no catch. it's free. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you around. join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on mobile and desktop today. >> 28-year-olds -- was dancing, and moments later running for his life. it was among the lucky ones, perhaps. we now know that 270 people lost their lives at the music festival near re'im, israel. tonight, he is reliving that horrific life-changing moment but with a different message about his missing friends. thank you so much for joining us this evening. we know it is morning where you are, evening here in washington and lee, see. you say that you hope the people who you are with just moments before and are missing, you hope that were killed. -- sagi, i think we're having a moment of difficulty trying to hear him. i do want to hear his statements. i want to hear about his experience. and we will get back to him as soon as we can. i do have my panel here. i think it's important. we just spoke to director clapper and he was talking about how he believes hamas became akin to ices, as president biden had described. he spoke about it, one part of, it as the blockade as one of the factors behind radicalization off the population. it is now 40% youth and gaza. you disagree with that assessment, tell me why. >> i want to bring in the broader historical context and explain what your supplicate of gaza. hamas took over gaza after the israelis withdrew every soldier, every citizen, every grave. and hamas had an opportunity to build a decent society. there actually was a putter palestinian more when they killed and three palestinians of rooftops and shot them in the knees. hamas takes over and hamas begins to use -- brain and weapons and bring in concrete that you'd hope to build hospitals and schools, instead they build terror tunnels to move weapons and fighters into israel. and so, this is what egypt and israel imposed a blockade. but hamas was found and the 19 80s and its founding charter cold for the extermination of israel. i lived there in the 1980s and 1990s, i remember hamas suicide bombings where hamas terrorists strapped suicide belts and walked into schools and cafés and discos and slaughtered israeli children. so hamas slaughtering israeli children and women is not a new phenomenon. it has nothing to do with the blockade. it has everything to do with hamas's founding audiology and 35 years of slaughter and jews that hamas has undertaken. >> i agree 100%. and understanding that hamas has been out terrorist organization bent on the destruction of israel since its founding. it came out of the muslim brotherhood and that has been consistent. i think that the conditions they lived under, and partly this is also under hamas's reign of terror in gaza as well, there are lots of people who live in gaza who don't support hamas. there are a lot of people who live in gaza who are very afraid of hamas because they are a terrorist group. but living under the conditions of the last 16 years or whatever, off the blockade, certainly helps hamas propaganda. it allows them to radicalize new people to their cause. their cause never changed. they are who they are. terrorists. >> and why now? what does that speak to? with -- the question for so many is we, those who are looking at this, what now? how could this have happened now given the historical context and given the 16 your blockade? why did it happened last saturday? >> it happened less so today because this plan has been designed and ordered by iran -- with haniyeh has a long-standing plan to surround israel with a ring of fire, terrorist weapons. and what haniyeh has understood, he's had a long-standing partnership with hamas -- providing billions of dollars a year and funding, weapons, and support. there's some disagreement on direction and control. but at the end of the day, what haniyeh wants to do is to light a fire and these borders. and he has lit up the fire in the west bank. israel -- to deal with the west bank. we and left the southern border vulnerable. i agree with director clapper's technical analysis about how israel must the -- it became overly reliant on technology, not on force buildup. but haniyeh is behind this. he's done a strategic job of shifting -- >> i think that definitely around, they are absolutely fellow travelers. that meetings that started taking place in beirut in the spring, we are all of the regional militant groups got together and they all talked about how they are going to attack israel. so this is all part of a shared interest. but i also don't want to take away the idea that hamas from its charter has wanted to do this on its own. it doesn't need israel to tell them what to do. >> around. >> iran, excuse, me around, thank you, it's light. but they have their own interest, just like -- there are slight no one has a difference here, but i think we all agree that this is a group of islamic militants that are bent on destroying israel and the timing, now, i think, has a little bit less to do with the saudi and normalization. but we can get back to that later. >> we'll be right back. leaning on your expertise. and we'll talk to sagi, as well, who as you know survived that music festival. more and a moments. >> i'm back -- with sagi -- thank you for joining us. i'm glad to have you here. i was asking you earlier, you say you hope the people you are with, moments before, are not missing or killed. why do you say? this >> i think it is a better case than to be killed then to be all held by hamas and gaza right now. i don't want to imagine what happens to people who get kidnapped. women, children, elders -- so it is a bit wearers, a thing to say, because i think it is better to be dead then kidnapped. >> sagi, to take me through those moments after the attack. you and our friends, i understand, you ran for hours. what were you thinking for all of those miles? >> you don't really think. you are in survival mode. you just try to move from situation to situation. and like lots of people -- with their parents, with their families, with their friends, trying to talk to them on the phone, tell them what to do, or jihad, were to go. but we didn't know exactly where we were. so any kind of information could lead you to iran position. any kind of wrong decision could leads you to be did or kidnapped. so you just have to trust your instincts and try not to think right now. and just acts. this is what i did. i actually broke my ankle during the running, but i didn't feel it because of the adrenaline. so this is how we manage. just trying to run for our lives and trying to hide. there were missiles above our heads -- that it's not your problem right now. even though missiles are super scary, but you look for a terrorist, look to the sides, and try not to get killed. this is how we managed it. >> just running for your life. just that adrenaline. it's unimaginable to think about what you endured and what it has been like since. you mentioned you left 20 people behind. can you tell me what it's been like to try to locate that? >> it's important to understand. the nova music festival is a community. everyone knows everyone who's been there. 3000 people. but the circle is very close. all the people, it is friends of friends. it's really unreal situation to live with right now because you just see your friends posting on social media, people you know, people i spoke with. they're missing. people i know from before. it's a crazy situation. i said to people, i didn't even have time to process my trauma because now my heart is with the people that are dead. >> sagi gabay, and think you so much for sharing. the unbelievable, heroin experience you have endured. we think of the people you continue to look for. thank you so much. we'll be right back. >> thank you. you're looking at live pictures that gaza at the start of the fifth day of this conflict. saturday more than 1200 people have been killed in israeli according to the country's public loud castor >> 900 have been killed and died in. gaza according to the panel is still in ministry of. health for more information about how you can help humanitarian efforts in gaza go to cnn.com slash impact. or tax relief to 707070 that 70 70 70 to donate. thank you all for watching our live coverage continues, after just a short break. c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? yeah, my 5g home internet delays the game a bit. but you get used to it. try these. they're noise cancelling earmuffs. i stole them from an airport. it's always something with you, man. great! solid! -greek salad? exactly! don't delay the game with verizon or t-mobile 5g home internet. catch it on the xfinity 10g network. this is cnn breaking news. >> hello and welcome to our news jng